Making cruising money.

As mentioned in a previous post we spend our summer months at home to get away from humidity, bugs and hurricanes south of the border and head north to see family and friends and hopefully add a few shiny coins to the cruising kitty.  We have two Duece and Half Military 6x6 tankers that we do summer contract work for wildland fires here in southern Oregon.  As this summer approached the fear of large fires in our forests this summer was in high gear.  At one point I heard that the fire danger was supposed to be 300% greater than anytime in the last 5 years.

Fires were rampant throughout Oregon and Washington this summer but here in southern Oregon we did not have one substantial fire.  They were all very small and after speaking with the managers of each of the four districts that we are contracted with, not a single private contractor was hired in any of those districts.  The rest of the state pretty much turned black this summer but southern Oregon is still green.  Although we could have used the money working fires, it is a great blessing that our area dodged a major bullet this summer.

After sitting for most of the summer, Marne and I decided that we needed to earn some money somehow so we re-purposed the trucks and set about delivering water to rural property owners who needed water due to failing wells over the last several years of drought.  We did not make a ton of money but learned the ropes and we will definitely use the new found knowledge that we gained in the water delivery business as we enter into next summer here at home waiting for fires.  

That's a wrap on the summer.  We are packed and ready to roll out Monday heading south through southern California and on to Mexico.

SV Liahona

Bret and Marne